“…nights where the Nuye cry are dreadful…”
鵺
*****
A short woman stood at the podium. Her small size, graying hair, and lipless grin were not yet menacing to the audience. She began to speak.
*****
Somewhere in ancient Japan, a limp pheasant floated in a bamboo box down a river. In the dappled light which filtered through the branches above, the glittering green body appeared to twitch.
*****
There was an old brownstone, grudgingly passed from mother to daughter, to daughter again. Bernadette’s grandmother had been one to knit nightly, rocking by the hearth and turning her work while red embers crumbled. Mom would be wedged into a soft corner seat, flipping through the pages of an almanac, while baby Bernadette sat on her lap, tugging the corners of the waxed pages to her gums.
*****
It was raining. The man wandering through Chinatown called his pregnant wife and told her he’d found a new tenant for the second floor of their brownstone. The tenant’s name was Mary. He ducked under a red awning and decided to wait out the rain, wondering what might be for dinner.
*****
The woman at the podium spoke in an unexpectedly nasal voice. The room went hot when she declared: “OUR STORY BEGINS…”
*****
Light fell on the bamboo box and urged the carcass: sleeping night-bird, wake. The bird did not wake. A tail like an emerald serpent lay between its soft feathers.
*****
As a child, Bernadette had spent many nights with wooden beads arrayed spirally around her. Flat on her tummy she’d grasp one and take peery-eyed difficulty in threading it onto thin florist wire. Her hands were still clumsy, then, and her balled-up fists too imprecise to work with the materials. She would kick her heels up behind her and rhythmically bounce her feet. The rug would fail to dampen the hollow sound of her toes colliding with the floor and Mom would call from upstairs – stop that.
*****
The man looked up from his book and spoke loudly to his pregnant wife, who was in the kitchen. He was approaching the precarious subject of her mom’s contribution to their current domestic state. As he fiddled with the seam of the chair cushion in the living room of their brownstone, she rounded the corner. He dropped his book over a knee, keeping it propped open and leaning toward her.
“I’m working as hard as I can everyday, and unless we wanna start selling our shit, I just don’t know how–”
She noticed a shadow over the crystal glass pane framing the front door. Her brow scrunched, and she walked forward, resting a hand on his shoulder as he spoke behind her.
She interrupted, “Babe, the tenant is coming… today?”
*****
It was raining. The man crossing through Chinatown called his pregnant wife and told her he’d bought the avocados she liked from the grocery. His pace was determined. It would be warm inside when he got home.
*****
“OUR STORY BEGINS…” the woman said again. The red curtain behind her swung open, and out sprang a cast of players, each wearing an intricate mask and robed in velvety, layerful couture. The audience leaned forward with an intake of unanimous breath.
*****
The bamboo box seemed divine. It was unbothered by branches, eddys, or the shore, simply floating. And still, the light above coaxed the night bird: wake, wake, wake.
*****
Tired from straining her eyes, Bernadette would roll to her side, tiny wooden beads becoming wedged under her armpit and ribs, and the fireplace, rotated in this way, would look right at her, with the last of the embers fading and the heat burning her nose and cheeks. She’d roll onto her back and close her eyes to see its gaping black afterimage. The rain would fall on the roof and she would cry – stop that.
*****
The cast of players leapt and rolled on the stage, while the audience gripped the edges of their armrests, spines arched forward. A bacchic urge rippled through the roused mob.
*****
Wake, night bird, wake. Something shivered within the night bird’s feathery breast. It was certainly a wicked pheasant.
*****
After inheriting the brownstone, Bernadette cleaned the chipping red bricks of the fireplace and found that some had come loose. Instead of replacing the structure fully, she bought mortar and filled in the gaps, listening to The Chicks while she worked. It took all day, and she liked it; the little temporary table set up in the middle of the room, the rug rolled back halfway exposing a lighter-brown wood floor, and the dust of dried mortar filling the grooves in her fingerprints.
When she turned off the music and the job was done, however, there still seemed to be something terrible seeping from the hearth.
*****
“Our tenant, I think she’s here,” the pregnant wife said.
She walked to the front door and opened it. A short woman with gloomy brown eyes stared up at them. Her mouth seemed wide, but closed; it formed a long pale curve. She looked to be in her late thirties. “Hello, Mary?”
The tenant’s mouth opened and closed. They could see her tongue for a quick second, then she spoke, “Yes. Hello, I am your tenant.”
The wife blinked for a second, then nodded eagerly. She pushed herself past her husband and thrust out her hand. Mary took it, and they shook twice. The woman’s colorless smile lifted, curving upward on its edges and widening in the middle. For a second, Shelley felt a flash of the Cheshire cat.
*****
The man looked up from his book to see his pregnant wife approach. She set two coffee mugs down on the low table, then in this half-bent position, put her hands on his shoulders. They looked at each other. She tilted her head from side to side, he chuckled and then she sat on his lap. Their arms lined up and he slid a thumb back and forth over the back of her neck while she rested her head and blinked against his chest.
“I almost have to go, love,” he whispered.
“I know.”
“Did you eat something?”
“I will.”
He hugged her closer and sighed.
*****
The audience sighed while agile dancers swayed and formed forceful shapes with their figures. They arranged themselves into bursts of bodies and velvet robes, one dancer planting himself and the others following, like a school of fish; choreographically they established the basic core of their forms, then arms and legs followed and fractaled from the center of the shape; hands and feet burst from the structure explosively. One dancer leapt from the stage to the aisle, floating atop the audience. Then, hot and wanted by hundreds of groping hands, was pulled into a sinkhole of bodies and mouths.
*****
Yes, YES, wicked night-bird – wake! The bamboo box began to move more swiftly, eagerly floating toward the river delta. The night-bird’s closed eyes twitched in anticipation. Perhaps it was only dreaming.
*****
Bernadette had begun to hate the fireplace. The inspector had said it must be filled in, and it was an unfortunate thing—but only if Bernadette was feeling selfless. Only grandmother, and Mom, would have still wanted it in the house, anyway. It would cost a fortune to seal-over, so Bernadette decided to take on a tenant.
*****
“Come in,” the pregnant wife offered, and stepped back to let Mary pass through the door. She carried no bags.
“Did you come here by taxi? Bus? Do you have anything we can help you bring in?”
Mary did not respond because she had gone upstairs.
*****
“OUR STORY BEGINS–” but where exactly did it begin? Somewhere in ancient Japan in a buoyant bamboo box under dappled light, in a hereditary brownstone with a cursed hearth, on the street in the rain under the awning of a grocery store? The audience looked frustrated; the small smiling woman’s question had collectively dispelled the trance and broke for a moment the mob from its fervor and illusions. She continued, “IT DOES NOT MATTER, YOU SEE…” and the audience sighed again.
*****
The bamboo box raced down the river. Paralyzed, the night-bird could only peer wildly at the widening river. It would have to awaken soon.
*****
The idea of eventually selling the brownstone tugged at Bernadette. She thought about the leftover cash there might be from taking on a tenant and decided that letting someone else into the brownstone meant freedom. And filling in the fireplace, closing that cursed mouth with a wall of brick and mortar, would be satisfying. Any tenant would do.
*****
The man and his pregnant wife followed their tenant upstairs, finding her at the window of the designated room. Eventually she turned, still smiling palely. She let out a hiss of air and her grin widened; it was a laugh or a sound of pleasure.
“Do you like it?’ the man asked. She nodded and came up to him, thrusting out her hand. They shook twice. He tilted his head forward and grinned.
*****
The audience chanted and dived into languorous moans, harmonizing at times and in complete discord at others; their philharmania unfathomably intense. The small woman’s pale smile widened.
*****
The pheasant in the bamboo box twitched and curled its serpentine tail and little-by-little, gained control over its body.
*****
Bernadette’s tenant called herself Mary. She was quiet, slightly nervous, and clean. She worked long hours and had few possessions, and Bernadette could often hear her shuffling around in the second-floor apartment space.
The day after the fireplace was filled-in, Bernadette stayed up late in the living room, reading. With the brick wall sealing the fireplace, the room no longer felt gaping and ominous. Bernadette could settle deeply into her chair and dream about selling the place.
*****
The pregnant wife began to hear noises in the night. She would be up when the heating system would stop and the house would go quiet, and she’d hear the sound, like a low humming. She knew it was coming from Mary’s room. The first couple of times, she would just wait up for the sound then go to sleep, feeling like by hearing it she’d proven herself sane and could relax again.
“Are you ever awake and hear something in the night, baby?” she asked her husband one day.
“No. You?”
“Mhmm, I think it’s Mary.”
So she started to wake him up whenever she heard the sound. She’d sit up in bed and push his shoulders lightly.
“Babe – now. Wake up. Hear it?”
“Nghuh?”
“O.K. go back to sleep.”
She’d exhale and lay back down, staring at the ceiling and listening to the sound.
The man came home and swung the coat off his broad shoulders.
It was warm and dim, and his pregnant wife was doing laundry; he could tell because the hall was dark except for the light emanating from the laundry room doorway. He hung his bag and returned his shoes to the rack neatly, then, grocery bag in hand, walked straight to the lit doorway. Her hair was floaty from the humidity and the air smelled like fresh linen so he wrapped around her and they swayed. She laughed and tilted her head back and he brushed his hand along her baby bump.
“Mmmm getting kinda soon,” she murmured.
“I know,” he said.
*****
The small woman’s words were unintelligible, and the audience was fully naked, now. Amongst their heaving bodies, performers struggled to resurface. Two people were dead on stage, but nobody in the audience knew why.
*****
The bamboo box was nearing a waterfall. The river grew dark and deep and its flow quickened while the night-bird struggled to turn itself over and crouch on its two tiger-feathered claws.
*****
The first night with the sealed-up fireplace was good. Of course it was – it was different, Bernadette thought. She knew herself enough to dread the day the fireplace no longer looked refreshing. Bernadette took up the habit of reading in front of it nightly, to reinforce its ordinary comfort. But then the noises in the night began to resound from Mary’s room, and the sealed hearth grew to resemble a silenced scream.
*****
The nights grew dreadful for the pregnant wife.
It was different from morning sickness; she began to have a sudden intense illness every night, after her husband had fallen asleep. It was accompanied by awful sounds, hyooooo hyoooo. Only, she was beginning to like the sounds, taking comfort in their consistency and numbing power. She’d close her eyes and live through them, imagining that the sounds were a large, dark bird, looming high overhead, surrounded by billowing smoke and fog, calling in a high-pitched warbling hyoooooo hyooooooo as it rose and extended its wingspan above.
She witnessed a long serpentine tail curl through a deep black fog; it swirled the dark cloudiness like sumi ink and pulsed to new octaves of hyooooo hyooooo. The ceiling above her became endless, its depth undeterminable in the grainy night, until it seemed the bird could be miles above or inches away, breathing madness and disease into her until paralysis. She’d clench her eyes shut but still see it, hyooooo hyooooooooo. She feared for the child.
*****
The mob was thinning out. The woman at the podium was no longer making noises, she was preparing for a final emanation. She breathed deeply and thickly, and her eyes came back to the room, fiery and golden. The remaining audience members saw her pale smile and finally shuddered.
*****
Bernadette wanted her tenant out.
For the first time in her life, she made a decision with assertion and clarity, and requested that Mary please leave the apartment; her rent would be handled for the rest of the month. Mary smiled wanly and nodded, blinking up through lashless eyelids. Bernadette felt that she’d won, for a moment, then turned inside and saw the fireplace’s gagged mouth staring back at her.
*****
Between waves of rising noise, the pregnant wife saw flashing images.
The baby, like a stain of burning light, floated at the corners of her vision and squirmed while she saw in flashes the shoulders of her husband, much stronger with healthy, muscled forearms, warm in a cotton t-shirt curled around her, his hand resting on the bump and smoothing it slowly. Unconsciously, she reached for him and felt nothing, he’d rolled away.
Her eyes could have been opened or closed through these flashing dreams, perhaps they were wide, looking up into the maw of the nightbird from which she received the visions. The feeling of tilting and falling in her sleep pulled at the weight of her womb, and unconsciously she clasped her arms around her middle.
Then the sounds stopped entirely. She was released from the night-bird’s tiger-feathered claws and slithery tail and crashed back down to her bed, her full belly bouncing into her and out again. She curled into a fetal position, she shivered and stared.
Dread rendered her frozen and helpless as she looked at the silhouette of Mary in the doorway.
*****
Just as the bamboo box slipped over the waterfall, the night-bird leapt into the air and pumped its ancient wings. As it flew, it heard the lustful thumping of a great mob; it saw in flashes the desires of a pregnant wife, the wreckage of the ungrateful and dissatisfied, and the call of unknown destruction. The horizon beyond looked like a thin, down-turned smile.
******
The woman behind the podium took one last thick breath of crackling air then released it in a terrorizing hyooooooo hyooooo. It resounded through the room and clamped with immense pressure around the skulls of her remaining audience, pushing into their ear drums with a low, drilling pain.
With the sound, a dark cloud like a serpent slipped from the small woman’s mouth and twisted itself through the misty atmosphere of the room, then arched down and through the crowd, slipping amongst naked arms and legs, through hair and between toes, touching and killing as it slithered, then, stretching and expanding, it settled in one massive haze and blanketed the crowd. “…AND SO OUR STORY ENDS,” the woman concluded, the ancient evil performed.
*****
“Love,” the man whispered into his pregnant wife’s soft hair.
“Mhmm?”
“She’s gonna be ours. Ours.”
“Mhmm, I know”
He exhaled and rolled to his back. She propped herself up on her elbows and smiled lazily, blinking slowly, then dropped her head to kiss his temple.
“We’ll get by.”
“Yes.”
They breathed together.
“Let’s not change a thing,” she sighed, and they slept.
The night-birds are keeping Ellen Kramer from sleeping.